EXECUTIVE WANTS TO CHARGE FOR WEB SPEED(The big boys want in on the action

[No Exit]

Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed

Some Say Small Firms Could Be Shut Out of Market Championed by BellSouth Officer

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 1, 2005; D05



A senior telecommunications executive said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users, a controversial system that would significantly change how the Internet operates.

William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.

Or, Smith said, his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth's offering. Network operators can identify the digital "packets" of content moving through their wires from sites and services and can block some or put others at the head of the stream. But Smith was quick to say that Internet service providers should not be able to block or discriminate against Web content or services by degrading their performance.

Rather, he said, a pay-for-performance marketplace should be allowed to develop on top of a baseline service level that all content providers would enjoy. "If I go to the airport, I can buy a coach standby ticket or a first-class ticket," Smith said. "In the shipping business, I can get two-day air or six-day ground."

(snip)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002109_pf.html

It seems to happen to all grassroots or small establishments. It happened to diners/restaurants--the big boys wanted in, and now we have the same McDonald's at every interstate exit in the whole country. It happened to doctors/medicine--and now you can't just go to your doctor whom your family trusted and pay him actual money for his treatment and advice. It happened to television--people were content to plug in the TeeVee, attach an antenna to the roof, and watch those 3-5 channels, never paying a dime except their initial outlay for TV and antenna. It happened to the local energy companies--when I lived in New Orleans decades ago, you paid your power bill to New Orleans Public Service, but at the time of the hurricane, the power company there was the boutique-ish, wussified, very corporate and very distant, "Entergy".

NOW THE BIG BOYS WANT TO DO IT TO THE INTERNET. Currently, even little people have a voice on the interent. They start a blog. If the blog is good, other people read it. Mister William Smith says to hell with that--he says the rich should, as usual, have privileges that others don't have.

I say, FUCK Mister William L. Smith of BellSouth Corporation. We consumers really, really, need to go on "strike", or boycott, if the big fat greedy bastards take away our grassroots press on the internet and start running the little guys out of business (as greedy corporations are so good at doing.)